


anchor

by timelessidyll



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: BIG IMPORTANT NOTE, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurities, Light Angst, M/M, NO WEIRD STUFF OK, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, TAEIL/DREAM MEMBERS excluding mark IS MEANT TO BE PLATONIC, it might get a little heavy for some, mostly - Freeform, technically all of it's platonic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-09-30 14:20:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17225654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timelessidyll/pseuds/timelessidyll
Summary: in which taeil is the anchor of their team, even for those he rarely meets.alternatively: 20 times taeil helps his juniors and 1 time they band together to help him.





	1. johnny

**Author's Note:**

> AGAIN IF YOU DIDN'T READ THE TAGS THIS IS STRICTLY MEANT TO BE PLATONIC FOR TAEIL/DREAMIES  
> if you want to see it in a shipping light i can't stop you but pls know that i did not write it with a ship in mind
> 
>  
> 
> [my twitter!](https://twitter.com/timelessidyll)  
> [my curiouscat!](https://curiouscat.me/timelessidyll)

johnny allows the smile to slip from his face as the last member leaves the shared dorm living room. he slumps on the couch, lets his head tip back to rest on the back of the sofa, and screws his eyes shut against the dim light of the lamp in the corner. he wills back the headache threatening his sanity and takes a moment to ground himself.

 

the practice room had gotten locked up today for maintenance, so there wasn’t an option of dancing his frustration away. neither was the opportunity to practice his vocals, and he knew he would retain a single ounce of knowledge if he tried to study a language, so all he can do is sit in silence and hope he doesn’t deflate like a balloon out of sheer exhaustion.

 

he isn’t sure if any of this is worth it. if he’s getting anywhere. even though he cares for every single member, he isn’t sure if staying is what’s best for him. it doesn’t feel like it is, not with how he feels continuously brushed aside by the company. as if to apologize, they let him have his own hobbies and side projects, but it’s almost a double-edged sword disguised as an offering. he gets more freedom in exchange for justifying their turning of a blind eye.

 

deep breaths, in and out. he’ll practice his mandarin in the living room to give taeyong some quiet. their leader has been stressing himself out during every waking moment, and johnny knows he needs every second of potential sleep. quietly, he creaks the door to their room open, tiptoeing to grab his grammar books, dictionary, and books in mandarin, and waits to hear for any change in taeyong’s breathing. when nothing happens, he sighs silently and eases the door shut, straightening up and readjusting his grip on the books.

 

“why are you still up?” he hears from behind him, and johnny stifles a scream even as he whips around to see who it is. taeil’s bright eyes catch his own, and he immediately relaxes.

 

“god, taeil-hyung, you scared me.” he presses a hand over his heart exaggeratedly, pushing his point as far as he could. taeil merely rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. johnny takes the hint. “i couldn’t sleep yet, so i decided to work on my mandarin,” he says in a low voice, gesturing to his books. he motions for taeil to follow him to the living room and spreads everything out on the coffee table.

 

“did you want any help?” taeil asks lightly, settling down beside him. “sicheng and kun taught me some things.” he doesn’t see any harm in it, but he doesn’t want to keep taeil up. they have promotions tomorrow, and they need to sleep. somehow, the thought isn’t applied to himself.

 

“you should rest, hyung.” he avoids eye contact and skims over the pages of the novel to find where he’d left off. “tomorrow is going to be busy.”

 

“as long as you’re up, i’ll help you,” taeil says simply, sharing a small smile and picking up his grammar book. “you’ve been working hard, johnny-ah. the least i can do is help with your mandarin.” johnny smiles back, believing for at least the moment that the future holds more than he’d thought.


	2. taeyong

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ships are meant to be platonic!!

it’s two in the morning. taeyong barely registers this fact through his haze, committing all his attention to the choreography at hand. he needs to perfect it soon for the showcase and then teach it to the other members, but at the rate he’s going, he’s afraid he won’t have much to show. the song is three minutes and forty-seven seconds long, and they need to fill every second of that time. but nothing clicks for him, and he’s been running through different moves for five hours now. he wants to throw his water bottle at his reflection, and the only thing stopping him is the knowledge that management would be extremely unhappy about it.

 

he wishes time would stop for a few hours. he wants to sleep, wants to release the tension in his shoulders and behind his eyes without a new worry popping up to replace the old one. it feels like so little to ask and yet so much, and his sense of responsibility keeps him awake far too late on most nights. being the leader hurts, but he doesn’t want anyone else to have to worry, so he layers happiness and excitement over his exhaustion and hopes it lasts through the day.

 

he has a strange thought suddenly. it’s like makeup. the analogy catches him off-guard, and the longer he thinks about it, the harder he laughs, and the harder he laughs, the closer the floor seems to come until it’s right next to his face. nothing makes sense to him at the moment, which explains why he found his own idea downright hilarious. he also has no idea how loud he’s being, at least not until the door to the practice room opens and a familiar head of red hair peeks through.

 

“taeyong-ah?” taeil asks, the skin around his eyes crinkled in concern as he watches taeyong wipe away the tears. he feels guilty for the briefest second before his amusement from before comes back, and he barely manages to say hello to taeil before dissolving into another fit of laughter. his sleep-deprived mind has clearly had enough of the two-hour nights he usually gets. “what happened?”

 

“did-did you know?” he wheezes around the laughter in his voice, “that happiness is like makeup?” it doesn’t fully convey what he wants to share, but that’s the only thing taeyong’s fuzzy mind could come up with. “you just-just keep layering it on! even when you don’t mean it!” taeil’s expression only deepens, and he crouches down to help taeyong sit up properly.

 

“yong-ah, i think you should come back to the dorm with me. you need to sleep.” taeil leans him against the wall and walks the short distance to turn off the speakers before returning. “you’ve been working too hard.”

 

“but taeilie-hyung, i haven’t finished the choreo!” he sobers up a little when he recognizes the immensity of his words. “they’re depending on me to finish it,” he says more quietly. taeil stares at him for a moment before pulling him into a comforting hug.

 

“we don’t want to see you run yourself into the ground for us, yong-ah. we can handle ourselves if it means you get to rest.” taeyong sighs and allows taeil to haul him up without complaint. “let’s go, yong-ah.” taeil turns off the lights of the practice room as they leave.


	3. yuta

yuta throws himself onto the bed haphazardly, the pain in his muscles is difficult to settle around, but he’s so exhausted he doesn’t think he’ll last another two minutes awake. a small voice in the back of his mind is reminding him that he has work to do, languages to study, people to meet, but all he wants is to sink into the abyss of his bed and never return. he thinks his own thought process is a touch overdramatic, but he can’t muster the energy to care. that’s one of the problems – he doesn’t even have any mental energy anymore. the longest break he’s had in the past three months was five days long, and that hadn’t felt like nearly enough.

 

the door to their room opens and closes on its creaky hinges that they never bothered to fix, and without a word, taeil flops onto yuta’s bed too. he doesn’t say anything as he begins to run his fingers through yuta’s hair, blunt nails scraping his scalp every so often, and it’s not long before he feels lulled into relaxation. it’s easy to let the tension slip away when taeil brings his calmness into his stormy thoughts. the fact that taeil doesn’t push him to drop his aggressive pace like taeyong and johnny also helps.

 

it doesn’t mean he doesn’t say anything about it, though.

 

“it’s two in the morning,” he starts, and yuta groans, already seeing where taeil is going with his opening statement.

 

“hyung, it’s fine,” he complains, his face pressed into the pillow and muffling his words. “we’ve all done worse.”

 

“not as often as you.” taeil sighs and shifts on the bed. “i know you want to make sure there isn’t a single flaw in your presentation, but you can’t expect to be able to keep up that standard when you’re running on three hours of sleep and coffee. i’m just worried about you.”

 

yuta knows he left his words purposely ambiguous. he knows taeil sees more than he mentions, and so he’s not surprised he’s been keeping such close tabs on him. after all, someone has to be the responsible one. “you shouldn’t worry so much about me.”

 

“it shows that i care, yuta-yah,” taeil responds airily, ruffling his hair one more time. “but think on that, okay? we all want you to stay healthy, and i know you have your own doubts, but learning to overcome them is a victory in itself.” he gets up and leaves the room, and yuta strains his ears to figure out where he was going. taeil returns only a few seconds later and he lifts his head up from the pillow to see him holding a glass of water.

 

“drink this.” he takes it wordlessly and gulps it down all at once. his thoughts ease for a moment, take up less space in his head. it feels a little calmer than before.

 

“thank you, hyung.” it means more than he lets on, and taeil smiles angelically at him.

 

“sleep well, yuta-yah.”

**Author's Note:**

> [my twitter!](https://twitter.com/timelessidyll)   
>  [my curiouscat!](https://curiouscat.me/timelessidyll)


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